“When two people want to do business
together, the details won’t keep them apart. But if two people do not want to
do business together, the details will not confirm the deal.” - Dr. Tony
Alessandra

What
are the Details of the Book?

If you want to acquire knowledge on
presentation skills and negotiations skills, read this book. If you want to acquire
selling tools and techniques to excel as a successful sales professional, read
this book. If you want to grow as a great speaker and presenter, read this
book. Jim Cathcart’s authored book The
Eight Competencies of Relationship Selling: How to Reach the Top 1% in Just 15
Extra Minutes a Day gives you the simple essential skills for your
self-directed performance improvement.

What
is Inside?

The book outlines ten keys to active
listening as follows: resist distractions; take notes; let people tell their
story; offer verbal feedback; listen selectively; relax; listen with your
entire body; be aware of personal space; ask questions; and show that you care
about what they’re saying.

The book outlines fifteen ways to stay
close to customers as follows: show them that you think about them; drop by to
show them what’s new; follow up a sale with a free gift to enhance the
purchase; offer valued customer discounts; let customers know they should
contact you when they hire employees; compensate your customers whenever they
lose time or money; be personal; always be honest; accept returns
unconditionally; honor your customer’s privacy; keep your promises; give
feedback whenever you get referrals; make your customers famous; arrange
periodic performance reviews; and keep the lines of communication open.It outlines some tips that will make you more
effective and make your speech more powerful.

1.Know your audience.

2.Know your stuff. In other words, get
your material together. Know what it is you’re going to talk about. Know what
key points you’re going to make. Make no more than three to five key points.
Illustrate each one with a good story or state some facts. Provide a
demonstration or a visual to drive that point home and then summarize it.

3.Create a catchy title for your own
presentation.

4.Do your homework. Research company
records, the library, magazines, telephone interviews, websites, whatever is
necessary to bring interesting and vital current information to your speech.

5.Stick with your outline.

6.Introduce the subject you’re going to
talk about.

7.Concentrate mainly on your
introduction and conclusion.

8.Plan a question-and-answer period at
the end.

9.Rehearse regularly for your speech.

10.Stay on time.

11.Show up early. Make sure all the
systems are a go. Be extra sure there is plenty of light on you the speaker.

12.Vary your eye contact during your
speech. While you’re presenting, don’t just speak to one group of people; speak
to the entire audience. Move around during your speech. But make sure you don’t
move so much that you’re distracting the audience. Have a purpose to the
movement.

13.Finally, hang in there.

Here
is what the author has discovered, in his twenty-five years of professional
speaking to over 2,400 organizations around the world, about “one percenters”
and the characteristics they possess. One percenters:

·Think
differently about what they do. (They are building, not just doing.)

·Build
relationships in advance of needing them.

·Take
personal responsibility for making things happen.

·Intelligently
work the odds.

·Intentionally
form habits and cultivate patterns that work.

·Know
the payoffs of each of their activities.

·Are
impatient with those who don’t take charge of their own lives and careers.

The
author shares an anecdote with Bill Clinton as follows: In 1994 he had the
opportunity to visit the White House with a small group of professional
speakers. At the end of the tour while their group was standing in the foyer,
Jim’s wife, Paula, suddenly said, “Oh my gosh, here he come.”

They
looked across the room and sure enough, there came the President of the United
States. At that time it was Bill Clinton. He walked over and he spent about ten
minutes with our group, one-on-one, chatting with each of us. Someone in the
group mentioned that they were professional speakers and commented that
President Clinton, too, was in many ways a professional speaker. Clinton looked
directly at Jim and said, “Half of my job is keeping people in the right frame
of mind.”

Dr. Tony Alessandra,
author of The Platinum Rule and Four
Personality Types

Author’s
friend, Dr. Tony Alessandra, author of The
Platinum Rule, says that we should practice the Platinum Rule: “Do unto
others as they would like to be done unto.”It’s a play on the Golden Rule, treat other people the way they would
like to be treated. Many years ago, Tony and I worked together as partners in
the creation of a program called “Relationship Strategies.” Relationship Strategies”
was based on understanding different types of people, and relating to them
using different strategies, based on what kind of person they were.

There
are two dimensions to this. One is openness. With any person you meet, it’s
pretty easy to determine whether they’re being open or not. Someone who is not
open we call “guarded.” They tend to keep things close to the vest, not show
their feelings. There are more thinking-oriented. They tend to be a little bit
more fact-focused, more formal and proper. People who are guarded tend not to
share information readily.

Someone
who’s open and direct is called the socializer. The socializer is the outgoing
individual who will tell you what they’re thinking at any given moment. You can
read them like a book.

The
open person who’s indirect, slower paced, we call the relater. The relater is
someone who’s a people person, a team player, more soft and easygoing about
things.

The
indirect person who is guarded is what, I call the thinker. The thinker is
someone who is more task-oriented. They’re someone who will analyze and take
time to study the details before making a decision.

The
guarded person who is direct is a fast-paced person that we call the director.
The director is a person who gets right to the point. They want something done,
they want it done right and they want it done now. They are very assertive
people.

So
there are four modes – the director, the socializer, the relater, and the
thinker – four types of people. When you learn to recognize these four types –
you’ll be more effective in selling, because each type requires a different
approach to reduce the tension with them and increase the cooperation to
generate more sales.

Notice
the kind of person you’re dealing with so you can practice Tony’s Platinum
Rule: “Do unto them the way they would want to ne done unto.”

The
relaters strengths are listening, teamwork, and follow through. Their
weaknesses are that they are a little overly sensitive; sometimes slow to
start, they tend not to set very big goals.

The
thinkers are guarded and indirect. They are slow and systematic, their priority
is on the task, their focus is on the process, and their appearance is a little
more formal or a little more reserved. Their strengths are planning and
organization. Their weaknesses tend to perfectionism, a bit hypercritical, slow
to make decision.

The
director is someone who is guarded but direct. They’re fast and decisive, they
focus on the task, and they want to get results. They are businesslike and
powerful. Their workplace is busy, efficient, and structured. Their internal
motivation is winning, being in charge. Strengths are delegating, leadership,
inspiring others. Weaknesses are impatient, insensitive, they dislike details.
They are irritated by inefficiency and indecision. It drives them nuts. Under
stress they get highly critical and become dictatorial. Their decisions are
decisive and quick and they seek from you bottom-line results.

Finally,
there is the socializer. What they fear is loss of prestige or boredom. They
measure their personal worth by recognition they’ve achieved, status, the
number of friends, the kind of attention they’re drawing to themselves.

High, Medium and Low
Velocity: The modern
society tends to reward the people with higher velocity. High velocity-those
who are genuinely self-motivated, who love to work toward goals. They prefer
long hours, they like those hours filled with a variety of activity. They use
even, their leisure time to advance toward their goals. In moderate velocity,
people prefer a standard work day with a moderate mix of activities. In low velocity, people are motivated
primarily by others, or by needs, rather than inner desires. They even enjoy
occasional inactivity, they like quiet time, and they don’t expect a great deal
from themselves.

Operational, Strategic
and Conceptual Bandwidth:
People have bandwidth. Some people have operational bandwidth. Their
intellectual capacity may be potentially able to handle all the information in
the world, but not all at once. Someone with operational bandwidth can handle a
few ideas at a time, efficiently. However, if you start presenting several
different ideas at once, they get confused and frustrated. The next level is strategic
bandwidth who can handle more information, but still there’s an upper limit to
how much they can handle. Next, the highest level, for our purposes is
conceptual bandwidth. Conceptual bandwidth would be about two percent of the
population. These are people who have an enormous capacity for processing
different ideas at the same time and doing so efficiently. These are people who
can juggle a lot of different tasks at once, keep all the plates spinning on
the poles, as they say, and keep these ideas, really, clearly in mind. They can
shift from one to the other without any real confusion.

Strategic
represents about eighteen percent of the population. When they look at
something, they look at it not in terms of the overall concepts, they look at
it strategically and they think. “How can this be used, what are some other
options or alternatives?” Typically these are the people who are drawn towards
sales, management or leadership positions. Not always but typically. Just learn
to recognize whether the person you’re talking with is more conceptual, more strategic,
or more operational.

Presentation Skills: Whether you speak well, or not, you
still must give a logical flow to your ideas. In your presentation, be sure to
cover five general areas - the calm, the need gap; the solution; documentation
and a call to action. To be more effective in making presentations, here a few
key tips. Be entertaining or interesting. Play off needs. Customize your
presentation, follow a structure, only discuss the features of your product or
service. Build perceived value. Differentiate yourself form your competition;
create carefully worded phrases. Present simple, broad concepts first, complex
detailed concepts later in the presentation. Lay the groundwork, and then get
specific. Finally, don’t make it a lecture, make it a dialogue, and involve
your prospect.

To
find out the real reason behind resistance use the following four-step process
for handling resistance:listen
carefully, don’t interrupt them, hear them out; check your understanding by
giving feedback, such as “Let me see if I understood you properly, here’s what
I hear you saying, is that accurate?”; addresses the issue effectively, use
logic and emotion. In other words, talk about the feelings, but also talk about
the logic; and confirm the acceptance of your solution. If you handled it well,
it shouldn’t be an issue any longer. So ask, “Does that put your concerns to
rest?”

Selling
Takeaways

·If
you were to spend merely fifteen minutes each day gaining one new sales idea or
sharpening a skill, within just a few years you would become an industry
leader.

·A
healthy and productive relationship requires three elements: a mutual
commitment to making the relationship work; open and frequent communication
between the participants; and knowing what you expect from each other.

·Not
all sales can be generated by today’s activity. Some of today’s actions need to
be sent ahead to prepare us for tomorrow’s sales.

·People
do business with people they like.

·Answer
phone calls in no more than four rings. If your phone traffic is too heavy to
allow this, hire someone else or get some way developed to get the call
answered before the fourth ring. A good receptionist is not measured by how
quickly he or she handles calls, but by the positive outcome of each call.

·Time
spent on hold is often referred to as being in “voice jail,” and that’s what it
feels like when you’re waiting endlessly to get your message through.

·Measurement
helps you determine what you’re doing right and what you’re not. If you don’t
keep records you don’t have a clue as to how to improve.

·The
five areas for any manager to measure are sales calls, expenses incurred,
non-sales activities, new market opportunities, and the results you’re getting.

·Lifelong
learning is essential in today’s world, but there must also be some lifelong
“earning.”

·When
there is no graduation, there is no commencement of one’s career.

·Sales
don’t come from what you know; they come from what you do. Knowing makes you
more capable but action brings results.

·Society
advances based on two things: the solutions we produce, and the connections we
sustain.

·Technology
has advanced so much that our biggest problem is choosing between good
alternatives, not simply identifying the bad versus the good.

·Today
we recognize that we don’t live in a mechanical world. We live in a world that
is biological. Therefore, we are entering what could be called the organic era.

·When
you don’t have an edge in product or price, then you must have an edge in the
way you connect with people.

·Relationship
selling is about making sales while building relationships.

·When
someone asks you a question, you should have a series of micro presentations
already thought through in your mind, so that you can instantly describe, in
the way you’d like to, the benefit or value that you want to convey to the
customer.

·There’s
quite a difference between merely being prepared and being prepared to excel.
For one, all that is expected of you is competence. For the other, you are
expected to achieve excellence.

·Each
of the assets that you build eliminates a liability that could inhibit your
career growth. Together these assets constitute your professional equity.

·An
opportunity is only an opportunity if you are ready for it.

·A
market is a group of people who have enough in common with each other that you
can establish a reputation among them.

·The
goal of marketing is to give you a large number of people who are wiling and
eager to see you.

·The
quickest way to grow your business is to ask for referrals. If you don’t ask,
you don’t get.

·We
need different people in our life who do different things for us and for whom
we can do different things-people who have a certain effect on us, who we are,
and how we live our lives. Look at what your relationships do for you.

·And
listen better. Good listeners generate more openness than those who are just
good talkers.

·One
very effective way to get your message out to the community, or your
marketplace, is by giving presentations. That means speeches and public
presentations, not just individual sales presentations. The reason this works
so well is that you’re able to reach many more people. When you have a group of
people gathered together and you’re able to present your message, you have
their undivided attention. You’ve got the opportunity to dramatize your
message.

·Marketing,
selling and service are not the same thing. Marketing is generating a desire
for your product or service. Selling is converting that desire into
transactions. And service converts those transactions into satisfied clients.

The book concludes with a message from
the following story: Several years ago Jim (author of this book) was walking on
the beach in La Jolla, California with a colleague of him, Dr. Spencer Johnson,
who wrote the book Who Moved My Cheese?
and prior to that, many other books, including co-authoring The One Minute Manager with Dr. Ken
Blanchard.

They sat down in front of the La Jolla
Beach and Tennis Club and watched the sunset. And Spencer said to Jim, “I’ve
been studying people who do what you do.”

Jim said, “You mean professional
speakers?”

Spencer said, “Yes, trainers,
speakers. Most of them seem to be working really, really hard but not getting
as much in return for their effort as they could get. Then there’s a small
group of them who seem to be getting almost everything they want, seemingly
without effort.”

Jim asked, “Why do you think that is?”

“What I’ve found is that the large
group, the people working hard and getting minimal results, seem to be working
primarily in their head. To them, it’s all about logic, systems, linear
thinking, details, specific hard plans and doing exact behaviors in an exact
way. That’s useful, but that’s not what gets big successes in the long run.”

“What about the smaller group that
seems to be getting everything they want and not working nearly as hard to get
it? Jim asked.

He said, “Jim, those people seem to be
coming primarily from their heart. They’re doing the things they love to do and
they’re doing things in a way that they deeply care about and feel committed
to.

What
is the Recommendation?

This book contains lots of examples,
illustrations, stories, case studies and quotes. It explains listening skills, presentation
skills, negotiation skills and selling skills. It is useful for any type of
industry to apply to reap rewards.This
book is useful for sales and marketing professionals and also for leaders who
want to improve their presentation skills, negotiation skills, listening skills
and selling skills. It is a great book worth investing your time. You can gift
this book to others. Enjoy reading this book!

“First say to yourself what you would
be; and then do what you have to do.” – Epictetus

This is an educational blog for free
sharing of knowledge, not for commercial use. Please don't cut articles from my
blog and redistribute by email or post to the web. The use of this material is
free provided copyright is acknowledged and reference or link is made to the
Blog http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.comThis
material may not be sold, or published in any form, or used in the provision of
business services to a third party without permission.

Monday, 2 March 2015

“Jim, Barry and Michael have produced
a truly enjoyable read in an Australasian context. Through a wealth of real-world
examples and thorough research, they identify universal leadership practices
that will be of value to all managers, from CEO to the front line, who want to
take on new challenges or refresh their approach to achieve more.” —Josh
Bayliss, CEO, Virgin Group (Worldwide)

What
are the Details of the Book?

If you want to understand leadership
from the perspective of Australia and New Zealand, read this book. If you want
to acquire leadership behaviors, tools and techniques, read this book. If you
want to grow as an extraordinary leader, read this book. James Kouzes, Barry Posner and Michael Bunting’s
authored book Extraordinary Leadership in
Australia and New Zealand: The Five Practices that Create Great Workplaces is
divided into seven chapters outlining the five practices that can help you achieve
amazing outcomes.

What
is Inside?

The book unveils the authors’
experience and research and their passion for leadership. They analyzed around
the globe more than 5000 interviews and case studies and more than five million
survey responses from all kinds of organizations, industries, functions,
levels, occupations, ages and ethnicities. This book emerged from their global
research. It outlines that when performing at their best, leaders: Model the
Way; Inspire a Shared Vision; Challenge the Process; Enable Others to Act; and Encourage
the Heart. It reveals strange research findings as follows: According to the
Gallup research organization, a staggeringly low 13 per cent of employees
worldwide are engaged. Worse, Gallup says, ‘over the past twelve years, these
low numbers have barely budged, meaning that the vast majority of employees
worldwide are failing to develop and contribute at work’.

Leadership
Takeaways

Leadership can be learned. It’s
an observable pattern of practices and behaviors and a definable set of
skills and abilities.

You can move mountains if you’re
prepared to involve people, and listen, and help them find a way.

It’s what you do with what you
have before you die that makes the difference.

Being an exemplary leader means
that you will have to clarify values by finding your voice and affirming
shared values, and set the example by aligning actions with shared values.

Leaders report that the clearer
they are about their leadership philosophy, the more committed and engaged
they are in what they’re doing.

Articulating your values and
beliefs clearly gives your team a framework for understanding what’s
important. It guides them to make the right decisions. Just as the North
Star guides sailors, your values keep you on course.

When you do what you think is
right and give, it comes back to you. That’s what happens when leaders are
clear about their values and are willing to live them.

When the lyrics and the melody of
a song go together, you’ve got synchrony; for leaders, when the words and
the deeds to together, you’ve got credibility. And credibility is the
foundation of leadership. People will only willingly follow you when they
believe in you. If people don’t believe in the messenger, they won’t
believe the message.

People expect their leaders to be
honest both with themselves and with others. Cynicism is bred when people
feel that you are inconsistent-that is, you say one thing but you do
another. You ask your team to do one thing, but you pay attention to
something else entirely.

Where you stand depends upon
where you sit. So you had better know where you are sitting (what your
values are), so that you won’t end up standing (your actions) someplace
else.

Doing this means you will have to
envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling possibilities, and
enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations.

Two of the most important things
leaders can do to drive engagement are ‘communicate and reinforce with
employees the organisation’s vision and values (and) ensure that
day-to-day managerial behaviours, actions, and decisions are consistent
with the core organizational values.

Leaders search for opportunities
by seizing the initiative and looking outward for innovative ways to
improve, and experiment and take risks by constantly generating small wins
and learning from experience.

Leaders are not probability
thinkers. They are possibility thinkers.

Exemplary leaders foster
collaboration by building trust and facilitating relationships, and
strengthen others by increasing self-determination and developing
competence.

Trust is ultimately about opening
yourself up to others making yourself vulnerable.

You can’t expect others to trust
you if you are not wiling to trust them. If people feel trusted, informed
and listened to, they are going to be far more productive in their jobs
because they feel like there’s something good happening.

Praise and encouragement are the
best gifts you can give anyone.

If you don’t know where you’re
going, any road will get you there.

If you really want to make people
feel valued and significant, you have to ‘make it relevant, make it in the
moment and make it specific to what you’re recognizing or rewarding.

Exemplary leaders understand that
great accomplishments are the result of team efforts, and that individuals
are more engaged when they feel they are part of a team than when they
feel they are all alone and no-one has their back.

If you want to boost employee
engagement, you have to encourage the heart of the people you work with.
People not sustain high levels of energy and productivity if they believe
that nobody else cares about the hard work they are doing.

One of the fundamental reasons
why people don’t take the initiative to lead is that too often they
believe that leadership is for somebody else, not for them.

Leadership is local, but it’s
also universal.

Highly engaged people become
leaders. They do whatever is necessary to get the job done-they do what
needs to be done through their sweat, imagination and sustained
persistence without anyone needing to tell or cajole them to produce. In
the highest performing organizations, everyone is a leader.

Leadership engages people and
brings out the best in them. And engagement, in turn, drives higher levels
of performance and more outstanding accomplishments. This virtuous cycle
begins with you becoming a being the best leader you can possible be.

Clarify values by finding your
voice and affirming shared values, and set the example of aligning actions
with shared values.

Envision the future by imagining
exciting and ennobling possibilities, and enlist others in a common vision
by appealing to shared aspirations.

People will never follow you
unless they know where you’re leading them and they’re inspired by that
destination, that results, that future.

Leaders don’t sit around waiting
for things to happen-they make things happen. They are constantly looking
for ways of innovating and improving their processes and results. They are
never content with the status quo. They despise mediocrity.

Foster collaboration by building
trust and facilitating relations, and strengthen others by increasing
self-determination and developing competence.

When people aren’t performing
well, your job as a leader isn’t to criticize berate or blame them-it is
to encourage, coach and uplift them.

Leadership is never easy. It’s
easy to read about leadership. It’s easy to attend a leadership training
program. It’s not easy to actually apply what you learn.

The
Leadership Challenge
is not intellectual; it’s far deeper and more personal.

The book concludes with a thought
provoking story differentiating between deciding and doing as follows:

There’s
a popular riddle about 12 frogs. It goes like this: if there are 12 frogs
sitting on a log, at the edge of a pond and five of these 12 frogs decide to
jump into the water, how many frogs remain on the log? What’s your answer?
Seven? Zero? 12? Five?

The
correct answer is 12. Twelve frogs remain on the log. Why? Because there is
very big difference between deciding to do something and actually doing it.

The book calls for getting off the log
and into the water to excel as a better leader.

What
is the Recommendation?

The book outlines five practices of
exemplary leadership with real world examples. It is a well researched book highlighting
leadership behaviors with practical applications to lead from the front. It
contains case studies and inspiring stories of successful companies and
leaders. It helps ordinary leaders grow as extraordinary leaders. The
leadership ideas and insights are well-punched hitting the bull’s eye.Although the book is written from the
perspective of Australia and New Zealand, the basic leadership principles and
philosophies remain the same, and can be applied in other countries as well.
Precisely, leadership is applicable for both local and global. It is a must
read for leaders and CEOs to improve their leadership behavior and achieve leadership
excellence and effectiveness. This book
is useful for leadership scholars and practitioners and leaders at levels
including CEOs. You can gift this book to your friends to inspire them to grow
as leaders. Enjoy reading this book!

“The exemplary leaders that are
liberally featured in this book provide compelling evidence of the power of
this framework as it has been applied to a wide range of organisations within
Australia and New Zealand. This book should become a compulsory mainstay of the
leadership libraries of both emerging and established leaders from all sectors
of the economy.” —Professor Brad Jackson, Head of School of Government,
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

This is an educational blog for free
sharing of knowledge, not for commercial use. Please don't cut articles from my
blog and redistribute by email or post to the web. The use of this material is
free provided copyright is acknowledged and reference or link is made to the
Blog http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.comThis material may not be sold, or published
in any form, or used in the provision of business services to a third party
without permission.

About Me

Professor M.S.Rao, Ph.D. is the Father of ‘Soft Leadership’ and Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants, India. He is an International Leadership Guru and an internationally acclaimed leadership educator, executive coach, speaker, and consultant. He is a sought-after keynote speaker globally. He has 36 years of experience, and the author of 36 books including the award-winning ‘21 Success Sutras for CEOs’ URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Ceos-Rao/dp/162865290X. His award-winning book 21 Success Sutras for Leaders URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI was ranked as one of the Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year – 2013 by San Diego University, USA URL: http://www.sandiego.edu/soles/departments/leadership-studies/thought-leadership/book-award.php. His award-winning book Success Tools for CEO Coaches: Be a Learner, Leader, and Ladder http://www.amazon.in/SUCCESS-COAHES-LEARNER-LEADER-LADDER/dp/9351102491 is the Community Award Winner for 2014 by Small Business Trends, USA. He is passionate about serving and making a difference in the lives of others. His vision is to build one million students as global leaders by 2030